Assembling the Rolling Chassis

7th October

Carried the chassis into the garage which had been even more extensively
tidied than for the engine rebuild! Need room for 2 cars in there now, along with
bikes, mowers, rotavator etc. The chassis is supported by wooden trestles I made when we built the house - well
over-engineered! The main body panel is still taped to the chassis, and the brown packaging tape
leaves most of its adhesive on the gelcoat! Comes off with white spirit and a bit of elbow grease.

By the time I'd taken the van back and packed most of the bits away in
the garage it was about 6pm. Separated the bodywork from the chassis and suspended it
from the ceiling above the car hopefully minimising the risk of dinging it.
Quite tricky as the main section is quite floppy and needs quite a bit of support.

Impatient to make a start so get going with fitting the aluminium panels to the chassis.
First ones to go on are the transmission
tunnel side panels. The panels are all neatly cut and pre-drilled, and fit well.
Just need to make sure the holes for the gear lever mount and seat belt mounts
line up with the lugs on the chassis.
Drilling the chassis and doing the pop rivets is quite time consuming, and my pop
riveter isn't up to much. Looked at buying or hiring an air powered pop riveter, but
a bit expensive methinks.

Next panel is the rear bulkhead which is a right pain to get in as it
needs to be flexed quite significantly to slot it in between the side rails and it's
a fairly tight fit around the tunnel. While rivetting it my pop riveter starts to fade,
needing quite a lot of pumps before finally popping each rivet. Manage to complete the
panel but I'll need to get another one tomorrow. Build manual seems quite clear and
easy to follow so far.

8th October

I got up early and did a bit more sorting out of all the parts in the garage.
I cleared some space in the garage loft which is floored and has a staircase
and took up there all the body work and all the bits I didn't think I'd need
for a while.

I nipped to the tool shop in town near work at lunchtime to get a new pop riveter.
Got a decent fairly heavy duty looking Stanley one and spotted a big concertina style
one which looks like it will make light work of the floor panel which has over 200 rivets. At
£12.50 it's a bargain ... so long as it works!

Get home in the evening and straight out to the garage to get on with the panels. Next are the two
front bulkhead panels which are a bit more fiddly as access for the drill and rivetter is
a bit compromised. Then get David and Chris to give me a hand to turn the chassis over to
fit the floor panel. Get that clamped in position and get drilling. Didn't take as long as
expected and after just over half an hour take it off to clean up the swarf ready to
apply the silicone sealant. I started off by tacking it in place at each corner then filling in
along the edges and along the tunnel rails etc. I wanted to get all the rivets in fairly quickly before the
silicone went off to make sure it all fitted snugly. First go with the new riveter
and it works really well, makes very light work of them! One push down on the handle
and it's done, much easier on the hands than the normal gun.

Moved on next to fit the petrol pipe which runs from the nearside front bulkhead
to emerge at the offside of the transmission tunnel. When I'd visited the factory
they showed me a part built car which had the fuel lines running underneath the floor on the driver's
side. This worried me as these cars run fairly low and I thought this posed
a fairly significant risk of grounding over speed bumps etc. Similarly space is
fairly tight in the transmission tunnel and the pipe needs to be kept well away
from the propshaft. This is a really fiddly job as the pipe isn't that easy to bend
and needs a fairly complex shape to get around the reverse gearbox mounts etc.
After a couple of hours of sliding it in and out to check the fit I decide it's as
good as I'm likely to get it and give up for the night.

9th October

Next job is to secure the fuel pipe using plastic P clips. Fairly straightforward
but fiddly as it's difficult getting the drill and rivet gun in the tunnel.

Move on next to fit the brake master cylinder and the brake light switch.
I've heard of people complaining of spongy brake pedals, and one of the
potential culprits is the brake light switch, which can hoard away a little air bubble
which is impossible to bleed out. I've spent quite a while perusing all the
build sites I can find, and about the best is
Dave Hackett's, and he mounted his
switch upside down to counter this problem. So I follow suit and mount mine upside down.

Chris is keen to help, so while I'm fitting these bits he finds all the parts needed
to fit the pedals. Sounds straightforward, but locating the right bolts can be difficult
given the large number of bolts, screws, washers etc. lying around. Don't get round
to fitting the pedals this evening.

10th October

Going away for a 2 day meeting this morning, but reckon I don't need to leave till gone 11.
I get up early and decide to make a start on the rigid brake lines, which is giving
me some apprehension as I want them to look tidy but don't have a pipe bending tool.
Some suggest using copper piping for this as it's easier to bend by hand but I've decided to
give it a go with the steel pipe supplied by Westfield. It turns out not to be too bad,
although like most of these things you always feel you could do it a bit better next time!

Also lost a bit of time looking for the right length 6mm bolt to mount the front brake pipe
T-piece. It's quite frustrating looking through oodles of bits making sure you haven't
missed it somewhere. I ended up using a longer bolt temporarliy.

I finish about 9am as I suspect the Evo's rear brake pads are expiring following the excursions to
Rockingham and Donington a couple of weeks before. Sure enough they're knackered so I
have a bit of a tight schedule nipping up to Promax Motorsport for some Pagid Blue's to replace the
pads. Made it though...

11th October

Managed to get home late afternoon so got a couple of hours in before going out for
the evening with my wife. I got stuck in sorting out the rear brake pipes. Again a bit fiddly
doing the P clips down the tunnel, but getting the pipes the right shape wasn't as bad
as I expected.

12th October

Saturday. But I'm working till lunchtime . Decide to get going on the pedals after lunch.
No real problems here, all as per build manual and all the bits were neatly stacked
together by Chris who seems to be enjoying the build as much as I am. By the time we've finished
he's likely to know more about how cars work than most other 11 year olds!

After the pedals were fitted I got the clutch and accelerator cables and fitted
them. The housing for the plastic bush on the clutch cable needed quite a bit of
opening out for it to fit but the Black & Decker Wizard made fairly short work of it.

The next job to tackle is the main wiring loom. This looks quite daunting,
but the terminals are listed in the manual in the order they turn up on the loom, so once
I've orientated myself it's not too bad. I start by getting the main bit down the tunnel
and making sure it's going to line up OK. The reverse switch and handbrake terminals both
come off the loom in the tunnel itself so I line it up using those then make sure everything
else is going to reach. I drill the chassis and attach loom saddles and loosely tie
the loom down. The front section runs across the engine bay along one of the engine cradles
so I decide to leave the entire front section of the loom until the engine and cradle are in.
The rear is fairly easy to sort out and an hour or so sees it all neatly tied down
with the terminals roughly where I think they should be.

Fitting the fuses to the scuttle panel takes a little time as you have to label
all the terminals and wires and disconnect them to get them through the pre-drilled holes.
Once they're through it doesn't take long to reconnect them and bolt them into place.

I decide to have a go at the diff next. I didn't specify many extra options, but the
Freelander limited slip diff was one of them. There's a supplementary set of pages
of instructions for this and I start trying to identify the parts I need. First thing is to
attach the mounting plates to the diff, then drop the assembly into the chassis.
Fitting the moutting plates is OK except I seem to be missing a couple of the spring washers.
Getting the thing in the chassis was tricky as it's fairly heavy and will only manoevre into
position a certain way. I use some masking tape to protect the chassis tubes and get it in with Chris's
help.

Right at the beginning I thought that the moment the chassis acquires suspension
it really starts to look like a car, so I was keen to get started on the suspension.
I started by identifying all the rear wishbones, uprights etc. first, then the shocks,
rose joints and bolts etc. Hit a snag here in that the powder coating was clogging the
threads in the lower wishbones so I'll need to get hold of a tap to clear them out.

13th October

A nice early start to the day in the garage. I was planning to go out with the cycling club
this morning and even got changed ready, but the weather forecast was pretty awful
and in the end it started tipping down just as I was about to go. I don't mind when
it starts raining when I'm out but setting off in heavy rain is another matter. Especially when
you've got a car to build!

There isn't much integration between the build manuals - when you but one of the 'Mega'
series you get two manuals, one for the standard SEiW and one for the particular bike
engined variant. In the absence of more specific insstructions I figured a reasonable next
step would be to fit the reverse gearbox. Of course bike engines don't have a reverse
gear, so Westfield's solution is to supply a custom rverse gear box which mounts between
front and rear propshafts. The result of this is that the car will in addition to its
six forward gears have six in reverse also. Could be fun!

I added gear oil before fitting it, then
lifted it into position and bolted it in via the long studs provided. The only hassle here was
that you're trying to tighten nyloc nuts onto each end and invariably one tightens
while the other one stays glued to the stud.

Once the reverse box was fitted I installed the rear prop shaft next. Main problem
here was that I seemed to be missing the 4 allen bolts to mount the rear flange to the diff.
I used some other 10mm bolts to hold it in place till I can get some from Westfield.
At the other end there isn't much room for manoevre, and it's difficult getting my 8mm
hex bit in. As Dave Hackett found these bolts are a little long, and are very close
to the reverse box housng. Although they're close they don't touch, so I left mine as they are
rather than pack them out with washers as Dave did. Same again for the front prop shaft
although access was slightly more tricky. Nothing to mount it to at the front yet so it's
left dangling on the floor at the front of the tunnel.

Popped out to see if I could find a 1/2" UNF tap anywhere, but no luck.
Machine Mart seemed the likeliest but they don't open on a Sunday so I'll have to
wait till Monday morning to get one. In the meantime I decide to fit as much of the
suspension as I can. There are a few discrepancies here in the manual with respect to fitment of
washers around uprights and shocks, but I think I've got it sorted OK.

Move onto the front suspension and fortunately (or perhaps because it's been done in the factory)
the threads in the front upper wishbones don't need cleaning. One of the supplied
18mm locknuts for the upper ball joint has deformed threads though and won't go on.
The front uprights, brake disk and caliper come as a ready assembled unit, so the front setup
doesn't take long.

The day's drawing near to an end so I decide to mount the coolant header tank
and radiator as my last jobs before clearing up. Radiator is very light and clearly
pretty fragile so I decide I'll take it off again in the morning to save it getting damaged.

14th October

Working from home today, so get up really early to sort my day's work out as
early as I can. Nip out to Machine Mart in the morning to get a tap and die set, also
grab a pair of axle stands while I'm there as I figure I might want to get the car onto
something a bit lower than my it is now before it gains too much weight - probably
just before fitting the engine as it'll mean we don't need to lift the engine quite so
high. Also rang Westfield to ask them to send me some of the missing bolts.

First couple of hours in the garage are spent tapping out the wishbones then I go about
fitting the wishbones to the chassis using plenty of copper grease. Then remove
the radiator and put it back in its box.

The guys at the factory had said to hold the driveshafts into a Z shape to fit
them as this will lock the lobro joints. The driveshafts knock in and are held
in place by a circlip. It all worked as planned and with a bit of grease on the
circlip with Chris supporting the shaft and jiggling it about a bit as I knocked
it in with the rubber mallett we soon had the nearside shaft fitted. Soon after
that the offside shaft was fitted.

Next was to fit the uprights and make sure the rear suspension was all OK
with all washers in the right place. While fitting the brake disks and calipers
I found I was missing 2 of the 10mm bolts and the spring washers so I rang Westfield again.

Fitting the gear lever and reverse lever plus its linkage mechanism
looked a fairly fiddly job. It looked to me like the reverse lever could get in
the way of the main gear lever, so I fitted the main lever first. The gear linkage rod
was fouling the chassis member, and tweaking it meant it then fouled the reverse box,
so it took a bit of time getting that right. It's a fairyl hefty rod and not that
easy to bend. I'm a bit concerned that there doesn't
seem a very big range of movement - going forwards the linkage will hit the crossbar
just in front of the lever and backwards the little pivot plate hits the chassis. I
spent a bit more time perusing Dave Hackett's site before satisfying myslef that
it was going to be OK. The bracket supplied for the reverse lever is a bit big and
needed grinding away quite a bit to avoid restricting the main gear lever even further.
Both levers seemed to function fine in the end.

The hub nuts on the end of the drive shafts were quite reluctant to go on,
they're fairly large nyloc nuts. I nipped round to scrounge a 41mm socket off Glen who
runs the village garage then fit both rear wheels to make it easier to apply a bit of torque.
The build manual says 250 ft/lb which is pretty huge and way above what my torque
wrench goes up to. I managed to tighten up to the limit of my wrench but will need
to tighten a bit more when I've got its wheels on the ground.

Next job I tackle is the handbrake. This looks fairly straighforward and it is. Half an
hour later and it's done. I can't fit the cable till the propshaft bolts are in.

Chris and I fitted the fuel pump next - the manual was a bit vague about where it goes
but I found the mounting lugs on the offside chassis member near the driveshaft. Next
we fit the fuel tank then add the hose from tank to pump and from pump to rigid fuel pipe.

Running out of time now for this evening so just fit the horn to the front of the
chassis behind the radiator.

Adding the wheels has really made it look much more like a car, and I'm pleased
with the amount of progress I've made in just a week. Prior to starting I'd been
reluctant to make estimates of when I'd have it finished, and thought it would probably
be three to four months. Although I know it's the fiddly bits towards the end that
take lots of time I'm starting to feel confident it'll be done in less than three months.

15th October

A full day in work today, so I don't get home till almost 6.30. I'm starting to run out of
things to do now as I'm held up by some of the missing parts. I still don't have the bolts to
secure the rear propshaft to the diff, and Westfield were out of stock of steering racks
and were expecting more in early this week. I can't fit the steering column, battery or any
of the dash until I get the rack.

It won't be long before I'm ready to fit the engine, so I decide I'd better get going
with completing the rebuild. I started to sort out the bits on the bench when my friend Mike
arrived. He's the one who came with me to the factory and put me in touch with the alloy welder.
He stayed quite a while as I showed him round progress so far. He asked how it was
going to be for legroom to which my reply was that I didn't know yet but had been assured
it would be OK if I optimized the seat position. So I decided to have a look while he's there.
When I sat in the MegaBird at the factory I could get in OK but couldn't lift my left foot to
let up the clutch, and my knees were tight up against the steering wheel.

My provisional plan had been to discard the seat mounting rails and mount the seat
directly to the floor, and to possibly raise the steering column. After SVA I might fit a
longer boss to bring the steering wheel a bit further out which would also improve clearance.
It becomes obvious that mounting the seat direct;y to the floor won't be on as the
two horizontal chassis members the seat
mounts to are quite forward, so I'll need to use some sort of mount. I put a couple
of blocks of wood in which looked like they'd approximate to the height of the seat mounts
when they're assembled. I then place the scuttle and dash in position to give me an idea where
the steering wheel will be. It was quite tricky clambering in with the car so high, but
I was extremely pleased to find that all looked as if it would be OK, I had plenty of
legroom and it didn't look like the steering wheel would be a problem. My first sit in the car
- great!

We also tried the roll bar and found that this was higher than my head. Just.
Might be close with a helmet on so I will need to make sure I get the seat as low as
I possible can. I have no instructions for the glass fibre shell seats and it looks like
I just drill through and bolt them to the mounting frame in whatever position I think best.

Won't get much more done on the car now for over a week as we're going away on holiday
on Thursday for a week and I want to see if I can get the engine sorted in the meantime.
As it turns out I do get quite a bit done before we go away - read about it
here. Spoke to Westfield on Thursday morning and should have
my missing bolts etc. and hopefully a steering rack by the time we get home.

We're off to Lanzarote for the week and my preoccupation with the new car has
prevented me from thinking about it much. It usually takes me ages to pack as I have
always taken my bike with me to do some training out there but this time I'm hiring
one of Club la Santa's Cannondales so it won't take long. We were last there in May
for the Ironman and most of my motivation went after the race so I'm hoping
to regain a bit of the fitness I've lost over the last couple of months.